


Out of Order

by Aposiopesis



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Anaphora, Epiphora, Gen, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 23:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9042635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aposiopesis/pseuds/Aposiopesis
Summary: Eternal and ephemeral, Clockwork is a person is a context is a concept, and was, and will be, all at once.
Danny Phantom Christmas Truce 2016 gift poem. Prompt: Clockwork.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilimreaper](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lilimreaper).



> Contains oblique discussion of mortality. Nobody dies who isn't dead in the show.
> 
> Happy Holidays!

There was, is, and will be, of course, an inherent contradiction in the job he undertakes. To maintain time, one must be objective. To maintain time, one must change nothing. To maintain time, one must change everything. But he is okay with this contradiction.

He is never wrong. He cannot ever be wrong. He must never be wrong.

Faces tend to blur together, since he's seen so many. This one is from a timeline that doesn't exist, but should. This one is from a timeline that shouldn't exist, but does. This one wants to go to "the future" or "the past," which are concepts that he humors because no matter which side of which barrier, nobody perceives that even slicing between moments is too divisive; all is _now_.

Eons are seconds are decades are hours are millennia are days are heartbeats are lifetimes.

The human, who is also a ghost, is unpredictable. The human, who is also a child, wants to unmake himself so that others will be happy. He concedes to the human, who is also his friend, but not in the way expected of him. He immerses the human in a patchwork of familiar pieces so that he might change his mind.

He finds that he can predict ghosts in a way he cannot humans. He finds that he doesn't mind the chaos anymore. He finds that he is changing. But he is okay with changing.

Eddies in time and water swirl around him. Life and doubt grow around him. Certainty drops through his fingers like sand.

Known: Energy has a tendency towards chaos. Known: Matter is an inherently ordered phenomenon. Known: When the universe enters heat death, all things will be equally chaotic. Unknown: Will he observe this?

He understands that most of the other ghosts used to be one thing and now are another. He understands that they came from the other side. He understands that he is where and what he has always been, although he does not quite understand where or what that is.

(To be fair, nobody else does, either.)

There was, is, and will be, of course, an inherent contradiction in the job he undertakes. Nothing can observe without its forever changing. Nothing can be observed without its forever changing. He will never know what he is changing and by what he is being changed.

But he is okay with not knowing.


End file.
